Sir William and Lady Hamilton came out to sea to meet me. They, my most respectable friends, had nearly been laid up and seriously ill, first from anxiety and then from joy. It was imprudently told Lady Hamilton, in a moment, that I was alive; and the effect was like a shot. She fell, apparently dead, and is not yet perfectly recovered from severe bruises. Alongside came my honored friends. The scene in the boat was terribly affecting. Up flew her ladyship, and, exclaiming: "Oh, God, is it possible?" she fell into my arm, more dead than alive. Tears, however, soon set matters to rights; when alongside came the king…. I hope, some day, to have the pleasure of introducing you to Lady Hamilton. She is one of the very best women in the world; she is an honor to her sex. Her kindness, with Sir William's, to me, is more than I can express. I am in their house, and I may tell you, it required all the kindness of my friends to set me up. Lady Hamilton intends writing to you. May God Almighty bless you, and give us in due time a happy meeting!
Sir William and Lady Hamilton came out to sea to meet me. They, my most respectable friends, had nearly been laid up and seriously ill, first from anxiety and then from joy. It was imprudently told Lady Hamilton, in a moment, that I was alive; and the effect was like a shot. She fell, apparently dead, and is not yet perfectly recovered from severe bruises. Alongside came my honored friends. The scene in the boat was terribly affecting. Up flew her ladyship, and, exclaiming: "Oh, God, is it possible?" she fell into my arm, more dead than alive. Tears, however, soon set matters to rights; when alongside came the king…. I hope, some day, to have the pleasure of introducing you to Lady Hamilton. She is one of the very best women in the world; she is an honor to her sex. Her kindness, with Sir William's, to me, is more than I can express. I am in their house, and I may tell you, it required all the kindness of my friends to set me up. Lady Hamilton intends writing to you. May God Almighty bless you, and give us in due time a happy meeting!
France sought revenge for the help given to Nelson's fleet, and declared war on Naples. The Neapolitans, in fury at being dragged into such a needless conflict, rose against their dear king and adored queen—especially against their adored queen—and threatened to kill them. By Lady Hamilton's aid the royal family reached Nelson's flagship and took refuge there from the mob. Sir William and Lady Hamilton went along. The populace looted the British embassy and stole everything of value Sir William owned—about one hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars' worth of property in all. Thus, Hamilton was the third man who had lost a fortune through Emma.
Meanwhile, Nelson had sailed to Palermo, taking the fugitives along. There he made his home with the Hamiltons. And scandal awoke, even in that easy-going crowd. Nor did the scandal die down to any appreciable extent on the birth of Lady Hamilton's daughter, Horatia, a year or so later.
Sir William's conduct in the matter is still a puzzle. He felt, or professed to feel, that there was no occasion for jealousy. And so for a long time the trio shared the same house.
One of the courtiers who had fled with the king and queen to Palermo was Prince Caraccioli, Nelson's close friend and Lady Hamilton's bitter enemy. Caraccioli asked leave to go back to Naples to look after his endangered property. As soon as he reached the city, he threw in his lot with the rebels and was made admiral of their navy.
Presently, by the aid of England's fleet, the royal family returned. The rebellion was put down, and the king and queen were once more seated firmly on their thrones. The rebel leaders were seized and brought to trial. Nelson is said to have promised immunity to Caraccioli if he would surrender. Relying on his friend's pledge, Caraccioli surrendered. At Emma's request Nelson had the overtrustful man hanged from the yardarm of his own flagship.
This is the darkest smear on Nelson's character, a smear that even his most blatant admirers have never been able to wipe away. It is not in keeping with anything else in his life. But by this time he belonged to Lady Hamilton, body and soul.
She, by the way, had managed to acquire from her friend, the Queen of Naples, a nice tendency toward blood-thirstiness; as witness the following sweet anecdote by Pryne Lockhart Gordon, who tells of dining with the Hamiltons at Palermo, in company with a Turkish officer:
In the course of conversation, the officer boasted that with the sword he wore he had put to death a number of French prisoners. "Look," he said, "there is their blood remaining on it." When the speech was translated to her, Lady Hamilton's eyes beamed with delight. "Oh, let me see the sword that did the glorious deed!" she exclaimed. Taking the sword in her hands, which were covered with jewels, she looked at it, then kissed the incrusted blood on the blade, and passed it on to Nelson. Only one who was a witness to the spectacle can imagine how disgusting it was.
In the course of conversation, the officer boasted that with the sword he wore he had put to death a number of French prisoners. "Look," he said, "there is their blood remaining on it." When the speech was translated to her, Lady Hamilton's eyes beamed with delight. "Oh, let me see the sword that did the glorious deed!" she exclaimed. Taking the sword in her hands, which were covered with jewels, she looked at it, then kissed the incrusted blood on the blade, and passed it on to Nelson. Only one who was a witness to the spectacle can imagine how disgusting it was.
Enshrined once more at Naples, hailed as savior of the realm, acclaimed for her share in the Nile victory, the confidante of royalty—it would be pleasant to say good-by here to Emma Lyon, ex-nursemaid, ex-barmaid, ex-lady's maid, nameless offspring of a Lancashire inn slavey. It was the climax of a wonderful life. But there was anticlimax aplenty to follow.
Nelson went home to England to receive the plaudits of his fellow countrymen and to settle accounts with his wife. Home, too, came the Hamiltons, Sir William having been recalled.
Lady Nelson was not at the dock to meet her hero husband. Bad news traveled fast, even before we boosted it along by wire and then by wireless. Lady Nelson had heard. And Lady Nelson was waiting at home. Thither, blithely enough, fared the man in whose praise a million Englishmen were cheering themselves hoarse—and in whose silver-buckled shoes perhaps no married Englishman would just then have cared or dared to stand. But Nelson was a hero. He went home.
I once had a collie puppy that had never chanced to be at close quarters with a cat. I was privileged to see him when he made his first gleefully fearless attack upon one, ignorant of the potential anguish tucked away behind a feline's velvety paws. Somehow—with no disrespect to a great man—I always think of that poor, about-to-be-disillusioned puppy when I try to visualize the picture of Nelson's home-coming.
Just what happened no one knows. But whatever it was, it did not teach Nelson the wisdom of husbandly reticence. For, a few weeks later, he remarked at breakfast:
"I have just received another letter from dear Lady Hamilton."
"I am sick of hearing of 'dear' Lady Hamilton!" flared the long-suffering wife. "You can choose between us. You must give up her or me."
"Take care, Fanny!" warned Nelson. "I love you dearly. But I cannot forget all I owe to dear Lady Hamilton."
"This is the end, then," announced Lady Nelson, and she left the house.
Only once again did she and her husband meet.
Nelson cast off all pretense at concealment after his wife left him. His affair with Lady Hamilton became public property. Their daughter, Horatia, was openly acclaimed by him as his heiress. The English were in a quandary. They loved Nelson; they hated the woman who had dragged his name into the filth. They could not snub her without making him unhappy; they could not honor him without causing her to shine by reflected glory. It was unpleasant all around.
In 1805 the deadlock was broken. Nelson was again to fight the French. He told Lady Hamilton and many others that this campaign was to end in his death. He ordered his coffin made ready for him. Then he sailed against the French fleet, met it off Cape Trafalgar, and annihilated it. In the thick of the fight a musket ball gave him his death wound. He was carried below, and there, the battle raging around him, he laboriously wrote a codicil to his will, entreating his king and country to repay his services by settling a pension on Lady Hamilton. Then to his next-in-command he panted:
"I am going fast. Come nearer. Pray let my dear Lady Hamilton have my hair and all other things belonging to me. Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton—poor Lady Hamilton! Thank God I have done my duty!"
And so he died, this knightly little demigod—true lover, false husband—who had fouled his snowy escutcheon for a worthless woman.
Now comes the inevitable anticlimax.
All England turned with loathing from Lady Hamilton. Her husband was dead. Lovers stood aloof. Folk who had received her for Nelson's sake barred their doors against her. She had followed the popular custom of living in luxury on nothing a year. Now her creditors swarmed upon her.
Her house was sold for debt. Next she lived in Bond Street lodgings, growing poorer day by day until she was condemned to the debtor's prison. A kind-hearted—or hopeful—alderman bought her out of jail. A former coachman of hers, whose wages were still unpaid, threatened her with arrest for debt. She fled to Calais.
There she lived in an attic, saved from absolute starvation by a fellow Englishwoman, a Mrs. Hunter. Her youth and charm had fled. The power that had lured Nelson and Greville and Hamilton to ruin was gone.
In 1815 she died. She was buried in a pine box, with an old black silk petticoat for a pall. No clergyman could be found to take charge of her funeral. So the burial service was read by a fellow debt exile—a half-pay Irish army captain.
One wonders—perhaps morbidly—if Nelson's possible punishment in another world might not have been the knowledge of what befell his "dear" Lady Hamilton in her latter days.
THE END.
BUY THESE TITLESwhereYOU BOUGHT THIS BOOK!
MYSTERYStrange Murders at GreystonesBy Elsie N. WrightGuiltBy Henry James FormanThe Stretelli CaseBy Edgar WallaceSilinski, Master CriminalBy Edgar WallaceThe Great Hold-up MysteryBy Wilfred UsherThe Uncanny HouseBy Mary L. PenderedThe Secret of SheenBy John LaurenceLong ShadowsBy Camilla HopeBy Foul MeansBy Patrick LeytonThe Phantom RickshawBy Rudyard KiplingDreamy HollowBy Summer C. BrittonThe Diamond Cross MysteryBy Chester K. SteeleThe Mansion of MysteryBy Chester K. SteeleThe Mosaic EarringBy Nell MartinThe Golf Course MysteryBy Chester K. SteeleThe Million Dollar SuitcaseBy MacGowan and NewburyCity of the Dreadful NightBy Rudyard KiplingThe Murders in the Rue MorgueBy Edgar Allan PoeThe Golden BowlBy Archie JoscelynThe Monk of HambletonBy Armstrong LivingstonHISTORYIn the Old WestBy Geo. Fred RuxtonThe Gold HuntersBy J. D. BorthwickWESTERNDon CoyoteBy Whitman ChambersBIOGRAPHYFace to Face with Our PresidentsBy Joe Mitchell ChappleROMANCEThe Girl He Left BehindBy Helen Beecher LongSins of the ChildrenBy Cosmo HamiltonBed RockBy Jack BetheaDoubloons and The GirlBy John Maxwell ForbesQuadrille CourtBy Cecil AdairThe Lovely MalincourtBy Helen MathersSem's Moroccan LoveBy Arthur KayThe Justice of the KingBy Hamilton DrummondThe Star of HollywoodBy Edward StilgebauerSome HoneymoonBy Charles Everett HallChildren of the WhirlwindBy Leroy ScottWho CaresBy Cosmo HamiltonThe Man Who Lived in a ShoeBy Henry James FormanThe Enchanted GardenBy Henry James FormanCap'n Abe StorekeeperBy James A. CooperUnforbidden FruitBy Warner FabianMary ReganBy Leroy ScottThe Blindness of VirtueBy Cosmo HamiltonDancing DesireBy Petronilla ClaytonWhy MarryBy Farguson JohnsonADVENTURELetters of MarqueBy Rudyard KiplingUnder the DeodarsBy Rudyard KiplingOn Autumn TrailsBy Emma-Lindsay SquierSoldiers ThreeBy Rudyard KiplingTales of the Fish PatrolBy Jack LondonWhen God LaughsBy Jack LondonOn the Highest HillBy H. M. StephensonSouth Sea TalesBy Jack LondonWilbur Crane's HandicapBy John Maxwell ForbesThe Light That FailedBy Rudyard KiplingRainbow IslandBy Mark Caywood
MYSTERY
Strange Murders at GreystonesBy Elsie N. Wright
GuiltBy Henry James Forman
The Stretelli CaseBy Edgar Wallace
Silinski, Master CriminalBy Edgar Wallace
The Great Hold-up MysteryBy Wilfred Usher
The Uncanny HouseBy Mary L. Pendered
The Secret of SheenBy John Laurence
Long ShadowsBy Camilla Hope
By Foul MeansBy Patrick Leyton
The Phantom RickshawBy Rudyard Kipling
Dreamy HollowBy Summer C. Britton
The Diamond Cross MysteryBy Chester K. Steele
The Mansion of MysteryBy Chester K. Steele
The Mosaic EarringBy Nell Martin
The Golf Course MysteryBy Chester K. Steele
The Million Dollar SuitcaseBy MacGowan and Newbury
City of the Dreadful NightBy Rudyard Kipling
The Murders in the Rue MorgueBy Edgar Allan Poe
The Golden BowlBy Archie Joscelyn
The Monk of HambletonBy Armstrong Livingston
HISTORY
In the Old WestBy Geo. Fred Ruxton
The Gold HuntersBy J. D. Borthwick
WESTERN
Don CoyoteBy Whitman Chambers
BIOGRAPHY
Face to Face with Our PresidentsBy Joe Mitchell Chapple
ROMANCE
The Girl He Left BehindBy Helen Beecher Long
Sins of the ChildrenBy Cosmo Hamilton
Bed RockBy Jack Bethea
Doubloons and The GirlBy John Maxwell Forbes
Quadrille CourtBy Cecil Adair
The Lovely MalincourtBy Helen Mathers
Sem's Moroccan LoveBy Arthur Kay
The Justice of the KingBy Hamilton Drummond
The Star of HollywoodBy Edward Stilgebauer
Some HoneymoonBy Charles Everett Hall
Children of the WhirlwindBy Leroy Scott
Who CaresBy Cosmo Hamilton
The Man Who Lived in a ShoeBy Henry James Forman
The Enchanted GardenBy Henry James Forman
Cap'n Abe StorekeeperBy James A. Cooper
Unforbidden FruitBy Warner Fabian
Mary ReganBy Leroy Scott
The Blindness of VirtueBy Cosmo Hamilton
Dancing DesireBy Petronilla Clayton
Why MarryBy Farguson Johnson
ADVENTURE
Letters of MarqueBy Rudyard Kipling
Under the DeodarsBy Rudyard Kipling
On Autumn TrailsBy Emma-Lindsay Squier
Soldiers ThreeBy Rudyard Kipling
Tales of the Fish PatrolBy Jack London
When God LaughsBy Jack London
On the Highest HillBy H. M. Stephenson
South Sea TalesBy Jack London
Wilbur Crane's HandicapBy John Maxwell Forbes
The Light That FailedBy Rudyard Kipling
Rainbow IslandBy Mark Caywood
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